Joan Chandler

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Along with The Birds and Psycho, Rope was one of the very first Hitchcock films I saw as a kid -- a dusty old videotape sitting on a shelf with an odd title scrawled on its edge. I loved it then and still have a fond memory for the film, which led me to explore nearly 50 pictures from the Master of Suspense.

Rope is a complex and dazzlingly unique picture. Subversively based on the Leopold and Loeb murder case, it presents us with two boys (Dall and Granger) who have been taught by their old headmaster (Stewart) in the Nietzchian philosophies of the Superman and the unimportance of the lives of simpler people. Dall masterminds a plot and Granger follows as his half-willing pull-toy; together they strangle a mutual friend, dump his body in a chest, and throw a party for his father -- serving a buffet from his makeshift casket.

Joan Crawford in a wacky comedy? With a name like Humoresque you might be expecting something lighthearted and fun. But no: The title refers to a Dvorak symphony, and Humoresque is anything but funny.

John Garfield was a wildly popular actor in his day, and this is regarded as one of his best performances, if not the very top. The story is one of obsession: Garfield's Paul Boray is an ambitious violin player who's quickly rising to the top of his profession. Crawford is Helen Wright, who's smitten with him and funds his life's work. But Boray doesn't have room in his life for two loves, so Wright gets the perpetual cold shoulder. Her last moments of screen time are as haunting as they are inevitable.